The second wine that I picked up from the Fine Wine Source Wine Club for July was Chateau Bel-Air Laclotte. Usually, as is my disposition, I wander around the shop and do some wine tastings while I am there. Unfortunately, I was running around, in fact the whole month of July will go down in the books as a very hectic month for me and it is a good thing that I gave up smoking, or I would have been chain smoking cigars to keep my sanity, but that is for another time and another setting, if I ever get to wanting to remember the events. Also, the wine shop was very busy, which is a great thing, and not with tastings, but with filling wine orders for customers.

Chateau Bel-Air Laclotte 2015 is a Bordeaux wine, located in Saint Gervais about twenty-two kilometers from the city center of Bordeaux, but it is not a lauded commune. The majority of the wines from Bordeaux carry the Bordeaux AOC which is the entire region that surrounds all those great communes that one immediately thinks of, when they think of the name Bordeaux. The three main grapes of the entire region are Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. The owner of Chateau Bel-Air Laclotte, the Earl Vignobles Stephan Motut was born on the property and inherited thirty-two hectares of the vineyard, the chateau and the outlying fields in 2004. The vineyards are planted in a clay-limestone soil, which works for the winery as the wine is seventy percent Merlot and thirty percent Cabernet Franc. I couldn’t find any production notes on this wine, but I will venture to say that it was probably aged for at least a year, looking at the spread of time from vintage to when it is being sold at the shop.

Once again,
this is a wine that I have not tasted, but there are two sets of tasting notes
that I have. The first mentions
Blackberry, Raspberry and Red Plum. The
owner of the shop was a bit more enthusiastic in the description and said that
it was rich and loaded with complexity and layers of flavor, including terroir
and hints of tobacco and leather. Of
course, a Bordeaux wine is always the perfect wine to pair with lamb, beef,
veal or pork, especially if they are roasted.
This is another wine that I will open soon, because who can’t resist the potential thought of an
enjoyable and affordable Bordeaux wine.